Objectives: On an International scale the Surgical and Clinical Adhesion Research studies (SCAR) solidified the huge impact adhesions have on our Health Care System and the daily complications occurring at surgical procedures because of adhesions. Study: Retrospective file and chart review of 462 patients undergoing laparoscopic surgery at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University...

The presence of a cloaca in the reproductive tract marsupials may predispose them to ascending infections. A 7-year-old, entire, female sugar glider presented with abdominal swelling. Whole-body radiographs and ultrasound revealed mass abdomen. Initial treatment included meloxicam, buprenorphine subcutaneous fluids. Abdominal exploratory surgery severe purulent distention multiple adhesions int...

Intrauterine Contraceptive Devices (IUCD) are known to be associated with many complications; however, uterine perforation migration into adjacent soft tissue is rarely observed. The authors report a rare case of 31-year-old full-term pregnant female who presented in labour and was posted for Lower Segment Caesarean Section (LSCS) view history LSCS. Dense adhesions were noticed between the post...

Spectraplakins are multifunctional proteins that interact with all three types of cytoskeletal filaments. In this issue, Wu et al. (2008) demonstrate a new actin-dependent ATPase activity for the spectraplakin ACF7 that allows it to guide microtubule ends along actin stress fibers to focal adhesions, promoting disassembly of adhesion contacts and hence cell movement.

It is well documented that directed motion of cells is influenced by substrate stiffness. When cells are cultured on a substrate of graded stiffness, they tend to move from softer to stiffer regions--a process known as durotaxis. In this study, we propose a mathematical model of durotaxis described as an elastic stability phenomenon. We model the cytoskeleton (CSK) as a planar system of prestre...

Using a minimal model of cells or cohesive cell layers as continuum active elastic media, we examine the effect of substrate thickness and stiffness on traction forces exerted by strongly adhering cells. We obtain a simple expression for the length scale controlling the spatial variation of stresses in terms of cell and substrate parameters that describes the crossover between the thin and thic...

Cell surface receptors are central to the cell's ability to generate coordinated responses to the multitude of biochemical and physical cues in the microenvironment. However, the mechanisms by which receptors enable this concerted cellular response remain unclear. To investigate the effect of cellular tension on cell surface receptors, we combined novel high-resolution imaging and single partic...

Although adhesive interactions between cells and nanostructured interfaces have been studied extensively, there is a paucity of data on how nanostructured interfaces repel cells by directing cell migration and cell-colony organization. Here, by using multiphoton ablation lithography to pattern surfaces with nanoscale craters of various aspect ratios and pitches, we show that the surfaces altere...

The ability of cells to form tissues represents one of the most fundamental issues in biology. However, it is unclear what triggers cells to adhere to one another in tissues and to migrate once a piece of tissue is planted on culture surfaces. Using substrates of identical chemical composition but different flexibility, we show that this process is controlled by substrate rigidity: on stiff sub...